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While Bigelow and Boal’s Detroit contains many black people, it lacks a
black community. Apart from a scene of the singing group Dramatics
waiting to go on stage, we don’t see people having fun or with their
families or really any aspect of black life in the city. The movie opens
in an illegal after-hours bar but provides no context about it. That
night people had gathered to celebrate the safe return of two men from
Vietnam ― but the sense of joy and revelry is left out.

And in an act of resistance, when cops raided the bar at 4:00 am,
patrons refused to disperse. This was a political act. Because many
Detroit entertainment venues and restaurants during this time barred
black people and black business owners had difficulty securing capital
and acquiring permits for an official establishment, many working class
black people socialized in these venues. Police regularly raided them ―
and these raids had been a chief source of frustration before the
uprising. July 23rd was the third time this establishment was raided in
less than two years. People had reached their breaking point. But the
movie doesn’t offer any of this. It is not long before we see a couple
of black kids stealing a bicycle and then one throws a Molotov cocktail.
Bigelow’s Detroiters are angry, alienated, unthinking and apolitical.
The film cuts straight to mayhem and violence.